After a few weeks off for regular council meetings, the Denton City Council swings back into action with an anticipated long meeting. We start at 11am for our Work Session followed by our 6:30pm Regular Session. Go here for the full agenda with backup material.
CRAFT ALCOHOL PRODUCTION CODE UPDATE – ALLOWING MICROBREWERIES DOWNTOWN
Historically, when cities thought about a brewery in their city, they tended to think about things like this:
As a result, most city codes relegated anything alcohol production related to the industrially-zoned parts of town.
The craft brewery revolution changed everything, including the footprint of your average brewery. As urban centers of cities become revitalized, these microbreweries have wanted to move toward the center of town and offer a vibrant amenity to the citizens beyond simply shipping their products to market.
As a result, today’s urban craft brewery looks much more like this:
We will be workshopping and voting on a change that would allow such “Craft Alcohol Production” businesses to locate to the downtown area. Imagine adding craft breweries with attached brew pubs and tasting rooms to our downtown footprint. It becomes another smart piece of our growing ecosystem of businesses, jobs, citizen amenities, and tourist attractions for our downtown area.
I’m proud of the work our Planning Department has done to move this issue forward and provide a platform by which to foster Denton’s growing locally-crafted beer scene. This will be great for our downtown area.
RESULTS OF 2015 CITIZEN and BUSINESS SURVEY
The city recently commissioned two surveys to better learn from the likes, dislikes, and concerns of our citizens. We’ll be hearing a report on the results of these surveys – you can also read them for yourself here:
– Community Livability Report
– Business Climate Report
REPORT ON FUNDING FOR DENTON’S CVB
The Denton Convention and Visitors Bureau contracts with the City of Denton and this year is requesting $1.1 million in funding – funding that comes from the Hotel Occupancy Tax fund. Because of the increase in funds from previous years and the growing scope of the CVB, the council members on the HOT Committee (charged with allocating all of these funds) asked for a work session on this topic to the full council.
The question seems to be whether to continue with the current model of contracting with an independent CVB or pursuing an option whereby the CVB is run in-house, directly by the city.
I look forward to this discussion. I know that the Denton CVB has a track record of pursuing innovative ideas with the agility that only an independent, non-city department can do.
As always, if you have any comments or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.